Report on 5Ws

Second quarter 2022

Food Security Cluster Myanmar homepage

Summary of achievements

Beneficiaries of humanitarian action formed 90.57% of the 3,033,156 beneficiaries in the first quarter of 2022. The remainder were reached through development interventions.

To recall, the Food Security Cluster’s strategic objectives for 2022 are:

• SO1: IDPs have equitable access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food (either in-kind or through food assistance)
• SO2: Vulnerable persons (excl. IDPs) have equitable access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food (either in-kind or through food assistance)
• SO3: Restore, protect and improve livelihoods and resilience

Overall, 91.12% of the food security cluster’s beneficiaries were from humanitarian activities.

2022 Q1 & Q2 humanitarian beneficiaries

SO	Q1	Q2	Total	total%
SO1	193,154	341,050	534,204	19.33
SO2	1,560,453	588,488	2,148,941	77.75
SO3	33,116	47,686	80,802	2.92
Total	1,786,723	977,224	2,763,947	100.00

A total of 8.88% beneficiaries were from development activities and actors.

2022 Q1 & Q2 development beneficiaries

SO	Q1	Q2	Total	total%
SO2	1,000	16	1,016	0.38
SO3	220,587	47,606	268,193	99.62
Total	221,587	47,622	269,209	100.00

Activities with significant increases in beneficiaries reached compared to Q1 include food/cash for work/assets, multi-purpose cash transfers and vocational training. New persons reached by farmer field school and farmer training dipped, likely due to the seasonality of the intervention. Encouragingly, the number of new persons reached by food distributions in Q2 was 83.08% as opposed to 85.81% in Q1, showing increasing investment in more durable solutions. Myanmar will likely face a prolonged food security crisis.

Beneficiaries by activity, Q1 & Q2 2022

Activity	Q1	Q2	%_change	Total
Food distribution	1,723,250	851,483	-50.59	2,574,733
FFS and farmer training	195,839	1,003	-99.49	196,842
Crop, vegetable and seed kits	48,046	60,912	26.78	108,958
Multi-purpose cash transfer	31,357	76,365	143.53	107,722
Food_cash for work_assets	7,352	26,362	258.57	33,714
Community infrastructure and equipment	0	4,770	0.00	4,770
IGA and small grants	2,048	462	-77.44	2,510
Heb and fortfied rice	0	1,706	0.00	1,706
Vocational training	327	1,306	299.39	1,633
Kitchen garden kits	0	475	0.00	475
Livestock kits	91	2	-97.80	93

Food distributions overwhelmingly target moderately-food-insecure persons in host and local communities, this group forms 75.04% of all beneficiaries of food distributions.

Food distributions by type food insecurity status and beneficiary type

beneficiary_type	Moderate	Severe	Total
Host/local Community	1,913,480	18,655	1,932,135
Internally Displaced	260,257	182,793	443,050
Rakhine Stateless	3,618	189,405	193,023
Resettled	2,977	0	2,977
Returnees	2,413	1,135	3,548
Total	2,182,745	391,988	2,574,733

55% of beneficiaries were reached by activities where nutrition had been mainstreamed.

Beneficiaries by status of nutrition mainstreaming

was_nutrition_mainstreamed_in_activity	SO1	SO2	SO3	total_beneficiaries	%_beneficiaries
Yes	327,046	957,282	90,490	1,374,818	45.33
No	207,158	1,192,675	258,505	1,658,338	54.67

1. Geographies

1.1 States

Though new beneficiaries reached remained biased towards Yangon and Rakhine in Q2, figures were less skewed than they were in Q1. Overall 66.24% of beneficiaries in Q2 came from Yangon or Rakhine, whereas it was 78.83% in Q1. Kayah saw the largest quarter-to-quarter increase in number of beneficiaries.

A total of 123 townships have been reached across 16 states/regions.

1.2 Townships

The top 7 townships, each from Yangon or Rakhine contained 68% of all beneficiaries.

Top townships by beneficiaries reached

state	township	Q1	Q2	Total	%total
Yangon	Hlaingtharya (West)	433,074	36,195	469,269	15.47
Yangon	Hlaingtharya (East)	270,646	128,461	399,107	13.16
Yangon	Shwepyithar	380,512	0	380,512	12.55
Yangon	North Okkalapa	168,400	172,559	340,959	11.24
Rakhine	Buthidaung	147,534	18,314	165,848	5.47
Yangon	Dala	81,125	81,390	162,515	5.36
Rakhine	Sittwe	22,484	130,281	152,765	5.04
Kayah	Loikaw	815	107,473	108,288	3.57
Mandalay	Nyaung-U	71,547	0	71,547	2.36
Rakhine	Maungdaw	44,625	22,757	67,382	2.22
Mandalay	Myingyan	46,087	3	46,090	1.52
Kayin	Hpapun	12,477	29,561	42,038	1.39
Kayah	Hpruso	26,507	7,557	34,064	1.12
Kachin	Waingmaw	19,249	14,292	33,541	1.11
Rakhine	Pauktaw	76	31,597	31,673	1.04
Only showing townships with >1% of total beneficiaries

Comparing the food security cluster’s footprint in the first quarter, with that from the second quarter, new activity can be noted in Mandalay, Magway, Kayah and Kayin.

26 new townships were added in the second quarter of 2022, including 5 from Ayeyarwady and 3 each from Mandalay, Magway and Tanintharyi.

1.3 Locations

A location refers to either a village, ward, IDP site or industrial zone.

The vast amount of project locations have only one food security activity.

With some exceptions, the vast majority of project locations have only one partner present.

224 villages have more than one partner present. The table below breaks down the beneficiaries from these locations by activity and state.

Activities conducted in villages with more than one partner

state	activity_red	beneficiaries
Rakhine	food distribution	287,278
Yangon	food distribution	65,721
Magway	FFS and farmer training	2,735
Rakhine	crop, vegetable and seed kits	1,525
Kachin	crop, vegetable and seed kits	698
Rakhine	food_cash for work_assets	653
Shan (South)	vocational training	504
Mon	crop, vegetable and seed kits	365
Rakhine	vocational training	66

The food security cluster’s partners can mostly be found in Yangon, Rakhine and Kachin.

2. Activities

2.1 Progress by activity

The first dotted red line shows the end of Q1 and the second shows the end of Q2. The thick line in grey shows the progress in 2021 for the same activity. It is observed that food distributions in 2022 greatly outpaced those in 2021. The same is also true for cash/work for food/assets and crop, vegetable and seed kits.

Newly implemented in Q2 of 2022 was the provision of HEB and fortified rice, largely in Chin state. Food distributions continued to be the largest activity, followed by the provision of crop, vegetable and seed kits.

2.2 Agricultural and livelihoods activities

The percentage of beneficiaries reached by agriculture and livelihoods activities (crops, vegetable and seed kits; FFS and farmer training; IGA and small grants; livestock kits) slightly in Q2 2022, compared to Q1.

The vast majority of beneficiaries of agricultural and livelihoods activities are recipients of farmer training and crop, vegetable and seed kits. It is possible that not all of Q2 was available for farmer training.

2.3 Delivery modalities

Only community infrastructure and equipment, HEB and fortified rice and kitchen garden kits were delivered entirely through in-kind modalities.

Percentage of beneficiaries reached by activity and delivery modality

Activity	In-kind	CBT/CVA	Hybrid	Service delivery	Beneficiaries
Food distribution	86.1%	12.3%	1.6%		2,574,733
FFS and farmer training	15.0%	24.7%		60.3%	196,842
Crop, vegetable and seed kits	83.3%	0.5%	16.2%	0.0%	108,958
Multi-purpose cash transfer		89.3%	10.7%		107,722
Food_cash for work_assets	17.3%	82.7%			33,714
Community infrastructure and equipment	100.0%				4,770
IGA and small grants	10.4%	87.4%	1.2%	1.0%	2,510
Heb and fortfied rice	100.0%				1,706
Vocational training	0.0%	23.1%		76.9%	1,633
Kitchen garden kits	100.0%				475
Livestock kits	97.8%	0.0%	0.0%	2.2%	93

There are also clear differences between the different beneficiary types and the delivery modalities employed with them. Beneficiaries from host/local communities largely received in-kind distributions whilst those from camps and IDP sites mostly received cash-based interventions.

Areas with more IDPs, such as Sagaing, Rakhine and Kachin, reach most of their beneficiaries through cash-based programming.

3. Cash-based programming

3.1 USD per household

Compared to Q1, beneficiaries in Q2 are much less likely to have received cash transfers of less than USD 10 per household. The most common transfer values were between USD 60 and 70, an increase from the previous quarter.

3.3 USD per person

The boxplots above shows the range of cash transfer values (all values are per person, to facilitate comparability) by activity. The average for reach activity is marked by the thick line in the middle of each box. The leftmost and rightmost side of each box indicate the 25th and 75th percentile of transfer values, respectively. The length of each box is a gauge for how much variation there is in the transfer values of each activity.

Each of the bubbles represents an individual distribution, with their position along the x-axis showing the USD per person value of the distribution and the size of each bubble indicating the number of beneficiaries reached.

Food distributions tended to have the tightest range of values.

Cash transfer values tended to be higher in Q2 as compared to Q1 largely due to increases in the per-household package of multi-purpose cash transfers.

3.3 Food distributions

Kachin, Rakhine and Shan notably have several extreme outliers much higher than the average for that state. Kayin, however, has a very large number of beneficiaries who received less the USD 1/person. Distributions in Chin and Ayeyarwady had very consistent values as they were all implemented by the same implementing partner.

The table below compares the different bins for cash transfer values of food distributions with the minimum expenditure basket for food established by the Cash Working Group. They have established a floor of MMK 190,555 (or USD 114.55).

Overall, 1.86% of food distribution beneficiaries have received at least 100% of the MEB and 9.35% have received at least 50% of the MEB (USD 11.45 per person).

USD values of food distributions by percentage of MEB received

usd_person_bin	avg_pc_of_meb	avg_usd_month	beneficiaries	pc_of_hhd
<$2	5.39	1.23	20,923	4.76
>=$2_<$4	14.44	3.31	49,617	11.30
>=$4_<$6	21.38	4.90	30,454	6.93
>=$6_<$8	31.76	7.28	55,843	12.72
>=$8_<$10	39.62	9.08	82,235	18.73
>=$10_<$12	45.59	10.44	164,264	37.41
>=$12_<$14	54.39	12.46	6,219	1.42
>=$14_<$16	65.65	15.04	1,741	0.40
>=$16_<$18	74.95	17.17	6,941	1.58
>=$18_<$20	82.86	18.98	10,843	2.47
>=$20	143.54	32.89	10,066	2.29
Only persons reached through CBT/CVA/hybrid modalities are included

3.4 Implementing partners

4. Beneficiaries

4.1 Beneficiary types

In Q2 2022, 22.19% of beneficiaries were from host or local communities, in comparison to 53.31% for round 1. 11.27% of beneficiaries in Q2 were IDPs, compared to 6.38% for Q1.

4.2 Evidence of food insecurity status

Of the food security activities reported, very few provided details about the food insecurity status of beneficiaries. This makes it difficult ot determine whether interventions are truly reaching those most in need.

In general, the food insecurity status of the beneficiaries of multi-purpose cash transfers were much better documented than the statuses of those who received food distributions.

Mismatch between food insecurity status and activity (Q1 & Q2 2022)

activity	food_insecurity_status	beneficiaries	%of_group
food distributions, moderate	Food secure	31,713	1.45
food distributions, moderate	Moderately food insecure	48,545	2.22
food distributions, moderate	Severely food insecure	206,922	9.48
food distributions, moderate	NA	1,895,565	86.84
food distributions, severe	Food secure	13,601	3.47
food distributions, severe	Moderately food insecure	13,644	3.48
food distributions, severe	Severely food insecure	67,956	17.34
food distributions, severe	NA	296,787	75.71
multi-purpose cash transfer, moderate	Food secure	16,183	45.67
multi-purpose cash transfer, moderate	Moderately food insecure	14,557	41.08
multi-purpose cash transfer, moderate	NA	4,695	13.25
multi-purpose cash transfer, severe	Food secure	41	0.06
multi-purpose cash transfer, severe	Severely food insecure	72,230	99.92
multi-purpose cash transfer, severe	NA	16	0.02

Evidence of beneficiaries’ food insecurity status provided to the cluster include:

Evidence of food insecurity status in Q1 & Q2 2022

evidence	beneficiaries	%_beneficiaries
No evidence	2,757,212	90.90
Armed conflict	147,088	4.85
community-based beneficiary selection	34,407	1.13
Post-distribution monitoring	31,347	1.03
Acceptable FCS	29,071	0.96
Beneficiary list and distribution list	19,279	0.64
Regular reporting	8,984	0.30
assessment, meeting minutes, payment	3,020	0.10
Village Profile	1,683	0.06
Based on Vulnerable Score (Vulnerable Criteria)	608	0.02
Food distribution certificate	308	0.01
Food Security and Livelihood Baseline Survey	119	0.00
Provision grants of women led micro business activities	30	0.00

The general lack of evidence of evidence of beneficiaries’ food insecurity status makes it difficult to justify to affected communities and donors that the Food Security Cluster is reaching the most in need. This highlights the need to promote a shared understanding of the response through the development of a common prioritisation tool for food security partners.

4.3 Beneficiary disaggregation

In this section, a test is applied to determine if the disaggregated numbers of beneficiaries reach have been copied and pasted – a somewhat common practice that sullies the quality of the data. To do this, the proportions of each disaggregation group by partner have been compared to how close they were to the mean for the entire group. To explain: if partner A reported that 40% of beneficiaries in an activity were adult females, this percentage was then compared to the average percentage of adult females for all other activities reported by that partner. This measure whether or not the same proportions were copied and pasted throughout the 5W form.

It is extremely unlikely that these percentages would be similar across activities as implementing partners worked in an average of 42 locations.

In the plot below, the closer a value is to 0% on the x-axis, the more likely it is that it was copied and pasted. It is estimated that 73% of beneficiary disaggregation values were copied and pasted.

Once the copy-pasted values are removed, this is the breakdown of beneficiaries by disaggregation group:

5. Partners

5.1 Implementing partner

There are 55 partners that were involved in direct implementation that have reported achievements in second quarter of 2022, in comparison with 44in the first quarter. These implementing partners corresponded to a total of 26 reporting organisations. The largest reporting organisation, 2690, had 24 implementing partners.

Reporting organisations with the most implementing partners

report_org_code	implementing_partners
org_2690	24
org_3536	7
org_8415	7
org_2625	4
org_3422	4
org_2214	3
org_5369	3
All others had 1 or 2 implementing partners

The interactive plot below shows the number of beneficiaries and townships reached by implementing partner.

13 partners (21% of the total) have a presence in more than 5 townships. 8 partners are present in more than 10 townships.

5.2 Monthly progress by partner

Organisations 6197, 2690 and 5722 have implemented the majority of their activities in the second quarter of 2022. The thick grey line shows an organisation’s progress from last year.

The table below lists the top 15 partners by number of beneficiaries reached in 2022.

Top implementing partners by beneficiaries reached in 2022 (Q1 & Q2)

org_code	ben_q1	rank_q1	ben_q2	rank_q2	total_ben
org_8540	380,478	1	4,502	25	384,980
org_5722	207,512	2	77,743	5	285,255
org_9693	122,397	6	78,569	4	200,966
org_4933	85,627	11	95,475	3	181,102
org_5440	116,142	7	52,944	10	169,086
org_6827	159,724	3			159,724
org_1206	156,433	4			156,433
org_2690	24,753	16	124,142	1	148,895
org_9566	89,365	10	57,723	9	147,088
org_3315	131,861	5	441	43	132,302
org_5677	95,835	9	23,473	13	119,308
org_6197			113,704	2	113,704
org_8004	69,918	12	40,490	11	110,408
org_6792	105,410	8			105,410
org_6130	35,385	15	61,280	8	96,665

5.3 Donors

The table below summarises the reach and scope (in terms of geographic extent and number of organisations supported) of donors who support at least two reporting organisations. FCDO and LIFT support the most expansive programmes.

Organisations supported and geographic reach by donor

donor	report_orgs	implementing_orgs	states	townships
FCDO	6	8	6	19
LIFT	6	10	6	15
MHF	5	6	4	7
ECHO	3	4	3	5
BHA	2	5	4	11
GIZ	2	2	2	7
org_5677	2	2	6	15
org_6793	2	3	3	9
org_7904	2	3	2	7
org_8415	2	2	3	15
Only showing donors supporting more than one reporting partner.

Sagaing, Shan (East) and Ayeyarwady have the fewest number of donors present.

Number of donors by state

state	donors	implementing_partners
Kayin	14	13
Kachin	13	14
Rakhine	11	18
Kayah	10	5
Mon	7	6
Shan (South)	7	8
Mandalay	5	3
Shan (North)	5	8
Bago (East)	4	3
Chin	4	4
Yangon	4	14
Magway	3	3
Tanintharyi	3	3
Ayeyarwady	2	4
Sagaing	2	3
Shan (East)	2	2

However, as shown by the table below, even though the majority of partners reported their donors, the omission of data from three key partners has resulted in the vast majority of reported beneficiaries not being associated with any donor.

Top donors by beneficiaries reached

donor	beneficiaries	%_beneficiaries
No donor specified	2,397,314	79.04
org_6793	156,303	5.15
FCDO	94,653	3.12
CERF	71,253	2.35
AICS	63,986	2.11
org_5677	49,279	1.62
BPRM	31,640	1.04
org_7904	20,213	0.67
DFAT	17,329	0.57
BHA	16,356	0.54
org_7002	13,851	0.46
AAP	12,392	0.41
MHF	12,303	0.41
NZMFAT	10,791	0.36
ECHO	7,854	0.26

Below is a table of beneficiaries who are missing donors, grouped by state.

Reported beneficiaries with missing donor data

state	beneficiaries	partners
Yangon	1,752,158	9
Rakhine	421,076	9
Kayah	98,394	1
Kachin	69,031	3
Shan (North)	18,420	5
Chin	16,389	2
Shan (South)	9,416	2
Sagaing	7,650	2
Kayin	4,505	2
Shan (East)	275	1

6. Comparison with targets

6.2 Reached vs target by township

The specifics of each township can be reviewed with the interactive plot below. Each point is a township, with the size indicating the number of beneficiaries. The x-axis indicates the target population by township and the y-axis shows the number of beneficiaries reached in Q1 and Q2 2022.

The red line down the middle represents reaching 100% of the target. Townships above this line have reached more beneficiaries than their target and townships below the line have not met their target yet. The further away a township is from the red line, the further above or below its target it is. Mouse over each of the townships to see more details.

The 13 townships along the extreme left side of the plot have beneficiaries but do not have targets (their targets have just been coded as 1 so that they show up on the plot). 209 townships with targets have not been reached.

6.2 Map of beneficiaries reached in Q1 & Q2 2022 vs target

6.3 Interactive reference table

There was an overallocation of resources in these relatively few areas in 2021 and this has continued in the first quarter of 2022. In the interactive table below, is a list of townships sorted by the gap between the targeted population and beneficiaries reached in 2022. Any of the columns can be sort; the search bars above each column can also assist in filtering.